You can get a six-pack of these awesome, bone-in, lightly smoked sardines at Costco for $9.99.

Canned sardines can be foul little shafts of mealy flesh. But they also can be tender, umami-dense spears of ocean goodness. I pick up different brands now and again, and about half the time I open the tin, take a bite, and toss the whole thing in the trash. When the sardines pass the trash test, however, they tend to not just skate by, but soar over the bin. I inhale them.

I hit Costco in Superior, near Boulder, probably every other week for the usual mish-mash of things I need, like affordable salad greens and fruit and even decent eggs, and things I don’t need and didn’t even know existed, like my quilted flannel jacket with a built-in, zippered hoodie. I wear it on cold morning while padding around the house. My oldest daughter says I look like Eminem when I wear it. This probably explains why I rarely leave the house with the thing on.

They came in six-packs, for $9.99. While I stood there agonizing over whether I should buy them, a woman beside me said: “I work in a doctor’s office and the other day the doctor brought these in and he raved about them so much I had to try one. And he was right. They are out of this world.” She picked up a stack of tins, and so did I.

Thank you, nice lady in Costco. And the doc she works for. These fat fillets of Omega 3 nearly made me sing this morning, after I had tossed half the tin into a pan with eggs, stirred the mess around for a bit, and heaped it on a piece of warm toast. It was so good, in fact, that when I finished I snagged the last piece of this triangular Scandiavian rye cracker that I bought while working on a story about Scandinavian food and plastered it with the rest of the sardines in the tin.

Yes, the wild sardines by Wild Planet rock! I eat them straight up out of the can (that is my taste test). The one thing that initially concerned me is that even though they are sourced off the California coast they are packed in Vietnam. No worries. The cool thing is Wild Planet is very open on their website about the reason for the packaging abroad (see link http://www.wildplanetfoods.com/Facts-and-Questions.html#faq14). Plus they come in BPA free cans..can’t beat that!

Yes Yes! Our local independent health food store has these beauties on sale this month for $2.29 per can so I stocked up…love the ones in olive oil and lemon. (but your Costco price is REALLY great!)…Wild Planet sardines are fabulous…I drain off the oil and add more fresh lemon and black pepper to them and enjoy with Ryvita or Low Sodium Triscuit crackers and fresh greens on the side. Great source of Omega 3 AND calcium!

have to disagree with you on this one. these are bulk traded sardines that were frozen and then stored before they even saw a cannery. the telltale sign is the easily abraided skin. proper sardines should
be canned from fresh fish not ones that were stored for months and then thawed and refrozen. compare this to the moroccan ones for instance, these are much tougher and drier. but are sold at the same price. thanks but no thanks.